Cherished memories and medical scares: The story of the Never Miss a Super Bowl Club
Tom Henschel woke up in New Orleans on the day of Super Bowl VI gasping for air. Unsure whether he was hung over from a night of Bourbon Street revelry or having an allergic reaction to a bowl of seafood gumbo, he stumbled out of his hotel room and onto the street, where he fell to his hands and knees.
“I couldn’t breathe,” Henschel, now 80, recalled of that scary Jan. 16, 1972, morning. “I thought I was gonna die.”
A police officer noticed Henschel in distress, loaded him into his squad car and rushed him to a hospital. The next thing Henschel remembers is waking up in the emergency room with an IV in his arm and an oxygen mask covering his mouth and nose. A nurse wheeled him to a private room and asked if she could get him anything.
“I said, ‘No, but I’m going to the game today,’ ” said Henschel, a Pittsburgh native and lifelong Steelers fan. “She said, ‘No you’re not. You’re going to have to watch it on TV here.’ As soon as she walked out of the room, I pulled the IV out, ripped off the oxygen mask, got my clothes and ran out of the hospital.”
Henschel took a cab to his hotel and met his girlfriend, who had flown in from Miami that morning. The two had lunch before heading to Tulane Stadium, where the Roger Staubach-led Dallas Cowboys beat the Miami Dolphins, 24-3.
To this day, it’s the closest Henschel has come to missing a Super Bowl.
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Don Crisman was cutting it close. It was the morning of Super Bowl XXXII in San Diego on Jan. 25, 1998, and the Kennebunk, Maine, resident and lifelong New England Patriots fan had not procured a ticket to the game.
His ticket sources with the Denver Broncos had dried up. The
